Vampire Princess Miyu and Vampire Princess Yui

The Miyu series is basically about a tragic girl vampire who
grants humans eternal dreams of happiness, while hunting down the
demons who delight in human death. The series is heavy on atmosphere,
visual beauty, and is alas a tad low in plot.

First thing to get straight: there are various different Miyu works.
These include:

Vampire Princess Miyu OAVs (the videos one sees everywhere)

Vampire Princess Miyu manga

Vampire Princess Miyu "novel" (series of text-only short stories)

New Vampire Princess Miyu manga (1 - 5?)

Vampire Princess Yui manga

Miyu Videos:

The videos are well-documented in almost every anime page on the World
Wide Web. Immensely popular, these videos tell the story of a woman
spiritualist (Himiko) who meets a young, intriguing girl-vampire who
gives her human victims not death, but immortality --- an eternity of
being lost in personal, internal fantasy. Thus, her human victims are
mostly those who have some subtle deathwish or tragedy, people who are
weak and would rather live in a fantasy world than in harsh reality.
(In the videos and the manga, such people include children who miss
their dead or distant parents, a young girl who can't stand to see her
beloved brother drift away, a boy who doesn't want to grow up and face
the corporate life expected of him, and so on.)

Meanwhile, Miyu's true targets are the stray Shinma, which are
demon-like, god-like beings who have a bad habit of preying on human
life. Miyu and her Shinma servant Lavra have the task of returning
the Shinma to the Darkness whence they came. The spiritualist Himiko,
who is simultaneously intrigued and repulsed by Miyu, slowly comes
(across the span of 4 30-minute videos) to understand some of Miyu's
past and her loneliness. Miyu, who had been destined to be a mortal
vampire and leader of the Shinma (for such is the nature of the royal
vampire line), accidentally let loose large numbers of Shinma in her
(and her mother's) efforts to avoid her becoming a vampire. (Her
mother was even planning to kill her beloved daughter to spare her
such a life). Thus, becuase of the Shinma mishap, Miyu was forcibly
given agelessness as well as the task of collecting those Shinma she
had freed. Now, trapped in this task and quietly wishing she could be
something else, she survives on human blood and sends Shinma back to
their dark home.

The videos are very well done. The 4th, the story of Miyu's
childhood, is perhaps the weakest; it spends too much time trying to
wring the viewer's heart (alas, so do many of the comic books). But
the mood is set pretty well, and the strong character of the psychic
(I really do forget her name) helps hold the 4 together.

First Miyu manga and the Miyu "novel":

These are tolerable, but not very good in my opinion. Geared to a
middle-school/junior-high all-girl audience, these short stories
follow very similar patterns: Miyu arrives at a school as a "transfer
student" and, with Lavra's help, hunts down a Shinma that has been
killing students in various different psychic/magic ways. Perhaps the
most memorable story is one of last ones from the "novel," in which
Miyu and Lavra attend a Halloween party at a private Christian school
--- one of the few times Lavra ever appears in front of normal people.
Unfortunately, though, all of these stories basically follow the same
routine. The plots are (as I've said) weak, and the artwork is not
Kakinouchi's best. In these stories, Lavra frequently takes off his
mask and speaks (unlike in the videos). One suspects this is to
appeal to junior high school girls' tastes, as the blue-haired
character is rather handsome.

Miyu in these stories is not as cool and collected as she usually
is, and spends a lot of time agonizing about her past.

Vampire Princess Yui:

Yui is the daughter of a male Shinma and a woman who has both the
blood of the Shi clan (another type of supernatural people vaguely
reminiscent of Shinma) and the blood of a vampire. Moreover, Miyu had
given some of her own blood to Yui's mother, so there's some of that,
too. (That event made the mother immortal as well as lost in la-la
land, but a strong Shi managed to break the magic and kill her).
Yui's particular Shi heritage makes her deeply connected to a magical
lake in a slightly different plane. The guardian of the lake was is
the sister of one of Yui's distant ancestresses. Said sister (Yuki)
unfortunately fell in love with a mortal man over a hundred years
before, and chose to enter a wakeless sleep with him rather than
fulfill her obligation to control the magic lake for a very long
(eternal?) time. (I think the obligation also required her to lure
people into the lake and kill them). This event wouldn't have been a
problem if all sorts of nasty Shi creatures did not covet the lake and
use its power. Said Shi creatures fear that Yui, naturally drawn to
that lake, would wake up Yuki, who would once more take up rule.

Yui, as a newly awakened vampire as well as a Shi whose roots lie with
the magic lake, suddenly finds herself attacked by all sorts of Shi
who really would prefer her dead and unable to go wake up Yuki. Yui
has some power, lent her by cherry trees and the lake, but she's not
quite good enough. Luckily, Yui (like Miyu) quickly finds a tall,
handsome, long-haired protector: Nagi. Nagi is a Shi who just happens
to be the adopted brother of the mortal man who fell in love with Yuki
the lake-guardian. Good with a blade and awkwardly protective of Yui,
he becomes her companion as well as her usual source of nourishment.
("You can be such a bother," he tells her as she, pale and weak,
drinks his blood). Nagi tries to get Yui to go to the lake and deal
with waking up Yuki, but Yui is simply not ready and not strong enough
yet. They pick up a third ally, an interesting and handsome Shi who
switches from short-haired male form to long-haired female form
depending on which one her/his opponents/victims might prefer.

In contrast to the distant, cool Miyu and the quiet, brooding Lavra,
however, Yui and Nagi are a far more "human" team. Yui laughs and
cries a lot in a natural, unrestrained way (whereas Miyu giggles
mysteriously, and only sheds tears when the author is trying very hard
to make the reader feel sorry for her); Nagi blushes and gripes and
tells Yui what a pain she is sometimes (whereas Lavra usually responds
to Miyu with a polite, obediant, "Yes."). The combination gives
Vampire Princess Yui more charm and humor than Miyu can
show, and the characters' more equal, human relationship seems far
less bound by strange laws of vampiric magic, servitude, and love.

Shin ("New") Vampire Princess Miyu manga:

With husband Hirano Toshihiro's (Iczer) help, Kakinouchi plops
Miyu squarely into a politically suggestive (?) plot. A large group
of Western (read: European) Shinma have come sailing across the Demon
World Sea, to attack Japan's Shinma. They have various reasons. For
some, it's simply a tempting opportunity to wrest the leadership of
the Shinma away from Miyu, who is, supposedly, the princess of
vampires and hence the Shinma's shepherd. For some (notably Lavra's
cousin Carlua and Lavra's foster father Pazusu), it is a chance to
recover Lavra from Miyu's control (and to get back at Miyu). For
some, it is revenge for old wounds suffered the last time someone
tried attacking Japan. For some, it's something even darker.

Lavra's story: Lavra had once upon a time been sent from the West to
kill Miyu before her vampire nature had awakened, but he grew fond of
her instead, pitying her as the young girl fought hard and valiently
to deny her awakening vampire nature. So he waited too long to kill
her. By the time he tried, Miyu was able to psychically overpower
him, drink his blood, and mingle some of her own in his veins. This,
by vampire magic, made him into her loyal servant. Throughout the
years that followed, after Miyu was made ageless to allow her to hunt
stray Shinma, Lavra proved over and over to be her strongest protector
and her best ally; without him, she would surely fail. And Lavra has
come to know Miyu's sadness, for she wishes privately that she were
just a normal girl doomed to die, not someone dependent on human
blood, not someone charged with a long and possibly eternal task.

Anyway, the Western Shinma, including such Shinma as Water Lipper,
Cait Sith, Pazusu, Carlua and such, arrive in Japan and promptly start
killing the Japanese Shinma. The Japanese Shinma, including the
doll-controller Ranka (who dresses in traditional kimono), emerge to
fight the invaders.

Alas, but the Western Shinma finally manage to capture Lavra, and
using a transfusion of blood from his cousin (who is in love with
him), they do a complete psychic clearing of him. Lavra forgets Miyu
and wholeheartedly joins his brethern in their conquest.

But a deeper plot is brewing, for one of the Western Shinma, Cait
Sith, has treachery on his mind. His mother (whose name escapes me
just now) was long ago turned to stone by Miyu's ancestress (?), and
now he has come to (1) kill Miyu and (2) return his mother to flesh
and (3) backstab the other Western Shinma and seize the throne for his
beloved mother. (Talk about Oedipal complexes...).

On top of all this, the Western Shinma manage to corner Miyu. To
Miyu's great dismay and sadness, Lavra battles her personally.
Heartbroken and unable to believe that her former best friend does not
remember her, she defends herself poorly and is killed. Lavra, who
tastes some of her blood as she dies, becomes very confused and feels
a strange anguish. Meanwhile, the treacherous Western Shinma Cait
Sith has been exposed to his compatriots, and Western Shinma kill
Western Shinma in a confusion of hatred.

Ranka and Yui come to Miyu's rescue. (Yui, by the way, had felt some
strong urge to come help Miyu, and so temporarily abandoned her own
comic book series to jump into Miyu's). Through some bizarre magical
procedure, Yui uses her own blood to create a "clone" of Miyu (though
with Miyu's soul). Revived this way, Miyu (now with the bonus of Shi
powers) battles the invading Shinma with renewed vigor. In a great
scene which I have paradoxically forgotten most of, she meets Lavra
again and he remembers her. Their fingers entwined, Miyu joyfully
partakes of Lavra's blood again, making him her servant once more, and
he happily and lovingly lets her. If this sounds kinky to you, it
probably is.

The last book was, alas, not very impressive. Essentially, Miyu and
Lavra win (surprise), as some of the Western Shinma form an odd
alliance with Miyu against Cait Sith. I don't remember very much of
the ending, unfortunately.

Overall, the Miyu and Yui books are beautifully drawn and heavily into
"atmosphere" and good-looking characters (just don't check the
head-to-body-length-ratio too often), but a tad thin on plot and plot
detail. It is frequently hard to tell exactly what/where/why things
are happening. The picture backgrounds are usually just, well, trees;
one hardly ever sees Miyu near a car (for example). The Miyu short
stories are all very similar in plot, and too often dwell in pity for
the poor vampire princess. However, I have most of these comic books,
so clearly I must like them. I do like them, in fact, but I sometimes
wish the plot would be a little thicker and faster. The videos,
meanwhile, are recommended viewing.